DjangoCon Europe 2025 Review
06/05/2025
DjangoCon Europe is one of our favourite events in the calendar. A celebration of all things Django held in a different city each year. This year we visited Ireland's capital, Dublin.
The thing that amazes me each time we go to a DjangoCon is the number of first time attendees who are long term Django users and have no idea how big of a community there is around Django, how much is done by so few and what impact they could have on the future of Django themselves.
I attended DjangoCon Europe for the first time in 2022 and have not missed one since, we’ve also been to two DjangoCon US conferences and have Chicago in September earmarked in the diary!
I would highly recommend looking into attending in the US or Europe when the opportunity comes up. It will change your outlook on using Django for the better!
Our 3 day trip to Dublin involved talks, networking, Guinness and not a lot of sleep! Here's my review of the week.
Day One : Wednesday 23rd April
Alarm went off at 03:30 ahead of our early morning flight from London Heathrow. We made it to the airport so early that none of the shops were open and the options for coffee were limited... a positive was that we got through security very quickly. Eventually we got the chance for some breakfast before boarding our flight.
When we landed in Dublin, we met with Adam Johnson who had flown in on another early flight out of London. We shared a taxi to the hotel half an hour outside the city in Stillorgan that was this year' venue and signed in for the conference. We were given new lanyards and some stickers. We grabbed a coffee before the opening remarks and Sarah Boyce's Keynote.
The rest of the morning we caught up on some emails and had some great chats in the hotel's lobby with other attendees. After lunch (a sandwich buffet) I went to another talk and then attended the Django Software Foundation Board Q&A session in the workshop room.
This was a really good session where the board members in attendance shared some of the projects they are working on and answered lots of the key questions from the room. Topics included the role of an Executive Director, the work being done by the Fundraising Working Group and Django's 20th Birthday celebrations this year.
We left the venue to go and find our airbnb which was a 15 minute cab away and a lot closer to the city. We checked in, showered and went in search of a Guinness.
On the Wednesday night we hosted (in the loosest sense) a django.social event in a venue in the Temple Bar area. Through the night lots of the attendees of the conference joined us and we had a great evening. We walked back to our apartment and had a bite to eat before finishing a long but fun day. Thanks to Paolo Melchiorre for taking this picture!
Day Two : Thursday 24th April
Thoughts of a lie in were not required. My alarm went off a mere 4 hours after getting to bed.
Before the conference started for the day, the DSF were holding an Annual meeting of it's members, covering a number of the topics discussed in the Q&A the day before. This time there was birthday cake though!
Thursday's talks were kicked off with a brilliant keynote from Mia Bajić. She shared a fascinating and fun story of Software Bugs through history. This was a great example of what a keynote can be and as a non techie I was engrossed.
Later I watched Carlton Gibson talking about community around Django and how decisions are made. If you have a spare 25 minutes, I recommend watching this back online. I missed the other morning talks as had some interviews to arrange and a call to take.
Lunch was another sandwich buffet and I had some great chats with people. I took this photo with Mariusz Felisiak who was the dream candidate quoted on my t-shirt.
After lunch I watched Mykalin Jones give her talk on supporting adult career switchers. This is a topic we get asked about a lot as it's increasingly more difficult to find work opportunities for junior developers here are some of our resources on the subject.
How to find your first Django Developer Job
How to reverse engineer your junior developer job search
For the remainder of the day I worked on my own Lightning Talk - STOP Applying for Jobs! During this talk I ran through some techniques to help your applications and also referenced the deepfake candidate situation I had last year.
In hindsight the deepfake candidate story would probably have been a more interesting talk to give. Maybe I’ll do that at DjangoCon US in September instead or you can watch the story here on our youtube channel.
That evening we had pizza from the place below our apartment before meeting a group of people from the conference at another bar that we picked. In a city as big as Dublin, it's important to share your plans on the slack channel so people can meet up. There's so many places you can go that you are unlikely to bump into other conference people otherwise.
Day Three : Friday 25th April
We did actually manage to make time for a lie in on the third morning. Packing up and checking out of our airbnb before arriving at the venue in time for the traditional conference group photo and then the morning coffee break.
Afterwards we spent some time speaking with people who were interested in our job postings and reviewing some CVs. Lunch was another sandwich buffet served with coffee. I watched Vince Salvino's talk titled "One Thousand and One Django Sites" to commemorate a milestone reached by his company. I met Vince at the last two DjangoCon events in the US and wanted to support him during this talk.
There was no time during this conference to play golf with Will Vincent, we had a beer at the hotel's bar as the conference was winding down and made a plan to play in Chicago in September. Liam and I tried the hotel's buffalo wings too, a solid 5/10 effort. We are definitely looking forward to finding some better wings in Chicago too!
The day was wrapped up by watching the Lightning talks again. Special mentions here to Daniele Procida who gave an all-time great talk and to the guys who presented a lightning talk written by ChatGPT about how to give a lightning talk. Very funny! Again, watch these back if you get the chance.
Final words from the organisers were given, reciprocated by a huge round of applause and the conference was over.
We jumped straight in a cab to the airport for our flight back, bought a few souvenirs, contemplated a final Guinness and boarded for home. 66 hours total time away from home but lots of fun and learned plenty, met some new faces and re-connected with others.
I made a short highlights video which you can see on our instagram or youtube channels.
Counting down the days to the next DjangoCon Europe in 2026… Although the host city still needs to be announced.
